


Cursed Bride

by magicianparrish



Series: Halloween PJO Challenge [6]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: French Revolution, this gets really dark so just a warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 17:43:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5099819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicianparrish/pseuds/magicianparrish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Piper is what you can call a "cursed bride".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cursed Bride

**Author's Note:**

> Here is day six! And we have Piper! 
> 
> Man, I keep writing these out of character. I mean I don’t know why, but it just happens. These stories are dark because I guess I’m just super into the mood of darkness and eeriness of halloween. So yeah, Piper is super out of character for this one too. Sorry. 
> 
> And I’m putting my AP Euro knowledge to the test in here. A lot of historical references. 
> 
> This was also really influenced by the Haunted Mansion (the ride). There’s one point where you see all the husbands of the bride who she killed with a hatchet, which is where this idea sprouted from.
> 
> Warning: mentions of murder and being beheaded. 
> 
> Context: 1793, Paris, France during the height of the French Revolution
> 
> Terms: 
> 
> Guillotine- a machine used to behead people 
> 
> Ancien Regime- the political and social system in France before the Revolution of 1789. 
> 
> Maximilian Robespierre- prominent leader of French Revolution and in charge of the Reign of Terror 
> 
> Committee of Public Safety- in charge of cleansing all the people “against the revolution” and headed by Robespierre 
> 
> Reign of Terror (or just The Terror)- from 1793-1794 anyone who was accused of betraying the Revolution and Republic was guillotined

**1793, Paris, France**

France was better off with the King, Piper thought as she looked down from her balcony of her estate.

The streets were bustling with people trying to get from point A to point B. Many walked with their heads hung low trying not to make eye contact with anyone else. It was dangerous to do so. One wrong look can send you to the guillotine and have a public execution for all of Paris to see. She would know, she sent three of her husbands to it.

Piper was born in France to Venus d'Olympique, a wealthy socialite in France with many connections in Europe. Never knowing who her father was, she was raised in France in the aristocracy. Lavish clothes, makeup and fragrances were handed to her. At first she had wanted nothing to do with it. She would rather play out in the streets with the boys than fit into another corset or attend another salon with her mother and airhead, fake enlightenment lady friends. But as she got older, and prettier she realized that there was no escaping the life she was in.

Until the Revolution came. Piper saw it as her way out of this lifestyle, to be liberated. But at that time she was already married to her first husband Alexandre Delacroix. An aristocrat who loved to kiss up to the King and only wanted Piper to show her off. She hated him and the marriage she was in. But she acted proper to please him until she saw her time to get rid of him. When the revolutionaries overthrew the Ancien Regime she had fed him to the dogs. Killed him with a hatchet she bought off the black market. She then hired criminals to dispose of the body and told the authorities that he was a traitor to the revolution and assumed that extremists had taken him while she was away. That was when she got the idea of how to dispose of all the toxic aristocratic men left in France.

Piper d’Olympique was the most beautiful woman in all of Paris. When she became a widow the first time, she went looking for her next victim to take out. She was a wonderful actress. She would flirt with every man she could, even daring to go with Maximilien Robespierre. She saw his potential well before he came into power later on.

She took her second husband in 1790, less than a year after the “disappearance” of Alexandre Delacroix. He was an a young man, quite handsome too. Jacques Favreau took the hand of Piper without any knowledge that she would kill him less than six months into the marriage. He was murdered in his bed in the middle of the night with a hatchet mark in the middle of his head. Piper’s alibi was that she slept in the other room and was unaware that an intruder had entered her home. The authorities believed her of course, she had a wonderful way with words.

The murder of Jacques Favreau made tabloids all over Paris and France. Piper was once again in the spotlight as an eligible bachelorette in Paris. Many people comparing her beauty to Aphrodite and Helen of Troy. Wealthy men came flocking to her with proposals. Piper sought out the worst man as her next victim. Pierre Travert, a pompous lawyer was her next victim.

The wedding of Piper d’Olympique and Pierre Travert was covered in all the popular newspapers. She acted like she was in love with him, trying to find love after the unfortunate circumstances of her late husbands. It was all an act to trick the Parisian and French people. It was her twisted way of contributing to the Revolution and rebel against her aristocratic upbringing.

Pierre never loved Piper. He only sought out marriage to make himself more wealthy. But that was okay. Piper didn’t plan on him being around long anyway. They never lasted more than a few months anyway. Pierre was never home, coming back deep into the night. Piper assumed he was gallivanting with other prostitutes giving into his needs. Piper refused to be intimate with him, claiming to be infertile. Since he was never home, she had to figure out a way to kill him off.

She had been talking and flirting with Danton and Robespierre, knowing they were in charge of France now. Accusations were being thrown around everywhere of being turncoats. The Jacobins were ruthless against anyone who opposed them. When the revolution came together, the first to go was King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette. Then it was their political rivals the Girondins. The aristocracy had fled France to take asylum with the Habsburgs or the Stuarts in England. As 1793 rolled around, the deaths became more frequent.

If you were suspected of thinking against the Revolution, you were rounded up and guillotined. Those who were afraid called it the Terror. Piper wasn’t afraid. No, this was her way of getting rid of the poisonous men. Soon she had started to whisper in Robespierre’s ear, knowing that paranoia was slowly consuming him. Telling him all the people she suspected of revolting against his reign.

He had sent out his police force and rounded them all up. Piper just watched from the background as she controlled him. That is how she got her third husband killed by guillotine. Of course she cried about how she was cursed with bad marriages. Put on a show for everyone to gather pity. People fell for it of course. They always would. It was amazing how rhetoric and acting can persuade people to choose sides. Piper was a well enlightened woman, she knew how to work it to her advantage. Even with all her husbands dying or “disappearing”, she was still able to snatch men to marry her. People had started to call her la mariée maudit. The cursed bride.

Her fourth and final husband Augustin Leon was just as ignorant as the others. Fooled by her beauty and charms to see through her. She was bought another glamorous wedding dress to walk down the aisle and saw empty vows in Notre Dame. It was a big event and the people of Paris thought Piper had finally found love. They had lasted the longest. Married in 1792, they had lasted almost an entire year. Piper had once again kept in touch with Robespierre, flirting and digging her way into his thoughts. An anonymous note given to the Committee of Public Safety captured Augustin Leon and accused him of conspiracy.

As he was lined up to the guillotine, Piper in her beautiful red gown had walked up and crouched down to him. She gave him a sickly sweet grin with a malicious glint in her eye. Poor Augustin was quite intelligent and he saw Piper for who she was. His blue eyes had widened and she started to scream.

“Traitor! My wife had turned me in for dead! She is the true traitor to Robespierre!” he shouted desperately.

She stood back up and faced the crowd with a sorrow filled face. The slice of the guillotine echoed in the air as Augustin’s head was chopped off and into the wicker basket. Now she was alone on her balcony reminiscing.

Public executions had already happened at high noon today. She didn’t bother to attend, there were so many who were dying by the day. She had started the process over again, but had no luck. It seems that after having four husbands killed, Piper was considered cursed and unlucky. Even her looks and charm did her no good this time. She was okay with that though. She walked back into her estate. It was quiet like usual. She walked over to her closet and pushed back her lavish and expensive dresses. Behind them was a long box that was collecting dust. She picked it up and put it on her bed and opened it up. Inside was the same hatchet she had used to kill her first and second husbands. The blood was stained on the now rusted and dull blade. She had no one else to kill. She put it back in the box and went into her closet again. She pulled out her third wedding dress.

It was beautiful really. Made of silk and gold threads, the bodice was cream colored with gold patterns decorating swirls on it. The sleeves went off her shoulders and the train of the dress went beautifully with her figure. She had worn many pearls and gems to that wedding. The circlet that she wore on her head looked just as beautiful as she remembered it. Piper stripped off her dress and put the wedding dress on. It still fit her perfectly and she looked at herself in the mirror. She turned her head and saw the hatchet still laying on the bed. Piper walked over and picked it up. She held it up like she was holding a bouquet of flowers and grinned maliciously at herself in the mirror.

“Here comes the bride,” she muttered softly before laughing sinisterly. 

**Author's Note:**

> Leo is on deck for tomorrow!


End file.
